1. Which is the most effective PC gaming headset?
Smartphones tend not to age gracefully, but after more than a year and a half since it was
first released, the Samsung Galaxy S II has really held up well. It's finally made its way over
to Virgin Mobile, in the form of the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G. That 4G has been added at the
end because this is the second phone on Virgin that can tap into Sprint's abandoned 4G
WiMAX network. That gets you much faster data speeds than most other prepaid phones if
you live in the coverage area. You also get a big, beautiful screen, good call quality, and a
solid camera. But all that comes at a steep $369.99 price. The Samsung Galaxy S II 4G is
still a solid value, but the much less expensive HTC EVO 4G remains our Editors' Choice.
As far as design goes, the Jitterbug Touch is identical to the Milano. It's short and squat, at
4.13 by 2.4 by 0.67 inches (HWD), and a bit heavy at 5.57 ounces. The back panel is made
of a matte gray soft-touch plastic and features the GreatCall name and logo in black beneath
an imprinted Kyocera logo. The display is a 3-inch, 320-by-240-pixel touch panel, which is
really starting to look lackluster. I dinged the Milano for this a year ago, and it only looks
worse now. Compared with the display on a standard feature phone it isn't terrible, but this is
about as low as you can go on a smartphone. The screen itself is too small, and the low
resolution makes everything look fuzzy or jagged. It becomes a little easier to see when you
crank up the brightness to the highest level, but the automatic setting is way too dark. The
Jitterbug Touch slides open to reveal a four-row QWERTY keyboard. It features keys that are
well-sized, raised, and backlit. It's easy to type on, though the phone itself is short, so there
isn't much room to stretch your thumbs out and really get going. Still, this phone will work just
fine if you want to send text messages or emails.
The punchy edge of the high-mids and high frequencies gives Bill Callahan's unique baritone
vocals on his most recent album, Apocalypse, some extra edge that helps them stand out
even more against the back drop of some occasionally thunderous percussion work. That
same crisp edge gives the higher register strings and percussion on classical tracks, like
John Adams' "The Chairman Dances," some added presence—not that they really need it.
The lower register strings and percussion can sound unnaturally powerful on some bass-
heavy headphones, but the Executive manages to bring some added bass response to these
sections without upsetting the overall balance of the mix.
An go to website can imporve your sound experience, As for noise cancellation performance
, on a recent flight, I was impressed by how much the earpads quieted the roar of the

2. airplane's engines. Ironically, switching the noise cancellation circuitry on seemed to add
more hiss, which is a trademark of less-evolved, cheaper noise cancellation circuitry.
However, the noise cancellation did eliminate a wide swath of low-to-mid frequency jet
engine hum. Unfortunately, you cannot use the Beats Executive in passive mode—it will only
produce audio if the noise cancellation Power switch is in the on position. This is true of
some industry-leading noise canceling pairs, like the Bose QuietComfort series. But the
Beats Executive is a musical pair first, and the noise cancellation, which is not extraordinary,
is merely an added bonus. This makes the inability to use the headphones passively more
frustrating than it is on a more effective noise canceling pair.
The bass distortion is not necessarily a deal breaker if you plan on listening at moderate,
safe listening levels, but it's nonetheless a bit of a disappointment in this high price range. If
what you seek as a pair of headphones with serious bass, but no distortion, you may wish to
consider the noise-canceling Logitech UE 6000 , which brings serious rumble without
distortion issues, even at top volumes—and it can be used in passive mode, as well. If noise
cancellation is your primary concern, it's really hard to beat the original champs: Both the
Bose QuietComfort 15 (a circumaural option) and the supra-aural (on-ear) QuietComfort 3
are excellent in terms of eliminating ambient noise without adding hiss. Our favorite current
combination of excellent audio quality and solid noise cancellation, however, is the AKG K
490 NC
As you have probably noticed, smartphone technology moves even faster than it does on
desktop and laptop PCs. Things that were once dream features, like quad-core processors,
720p screens, and 8-megapixel cameras, are now commonplace. So it's becoming tougher
and tougher for each phone to stand above the rest. The HTC One X+ ($199.99) scores with
its quad-core processor and massive 64GB of internal storage, all for half the price of a
similarly-equipped Apple iPhone 5 . That, plus a slew of other improvements over last year's
version, help keep the HTC One X+ in the thick of the pack, if not quite on top of it. The HTC
One X+ measures 5.31 by 2.75 by 0.36 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.9 ounces. It feels like a
quality piece, with a soft touch black housing that's comfortable to hold. A standard-size
3.5mm headphone jack sits on top, while the micro USB port is on the side-an arrangement I
prefer, since it makes it easy to charge the handset on your desk while still using it. The 4.7-
inch, 720p (1,280-by-720) Super LCD 2 delivers a tight pixel density of 312ppi, which is
slightly less than you get with an iPhone 5, but in practice, you won't notice. Typing on the
oversized, HTC-modified onscreen keyboard was easy in both portrait and landscape modes.

3. As far as design goes, the Jitterbug Touch is identical to the Milano. It's short and squat, at
4.13 by 2.4 by 0.67 inches (HWD), and a bit heavy at 5.57 ounces. The back panel is made
of a matte gray soft-touch plastic and features the GreatCall name and logo in black beneath
an imprinted Kyocera logo. The display is a 3-inch, 320-by-240-pixel touch panel, which is
really starting to look lackluster. I dinged the Milano for this a year ago, and it only looks
worse now. Compared with the display on a standard feature phone it isn't terrible, but this is
about as low as you can go on a smartphone. The screen itself is too small, and the low
resolution makes everything look fuzzy or jagged. It becomes a little easier to see when you
crank up the brightness to the highest level, but the automatic setting is way too dark. The
Jitterbug Touch slides open to reveal a four-row QWERTY keyboard. It features keys that are
well-sized, raised, and backlit. It's easy to type on, though the phone itself is short, so there
isn't much room to stretch your thumbs out and really get going. Still, this phone will work just
fine if you want to send text messages or emails.
The blue cable is about four feet in length with the controller just about six inches below the
headphone connector. There is a microphone on the back side of the controller and three
buttons on the front. The top and bottom buttons are used for volume up and down control.
The center media button has several functions, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to music and
podcasts with the Logitech UE 6000 headphones and found them to be extremely
comfortable for extended play. I watched movies on my iPad, used them for calls, and
streamed music from my devices to the headphones. Just like the Logitech UE earphones I
tried earlier, these sounded fantastic and I think they should be at the top of your list for ANC
headphones. They are $100 less than the most common ANC headphones I see while
traveling, the Bose QuietComfort, and I hope to see more people trying them out. The
headphones are fairly light and also very well made. I can't judge their long term quality or
reliability without further testing.
An take a look at the site here can imporve your sound experience, Reception and voice
quality are average. Voices sound somewhat scratchy and robotic in the phone's earpiece,
but are still easy to understand and plenty loud. Calls made with the phone sound a little
muted and grainy, and noise cancellation is poor. Calls were fine through a Jawbone Era

4. Bluetooth headset, and standard Android voice dialing worked well. I had some trouble
connecting to the headset, which I'll explain further below. The phone is also hearing aid
compatible with an M4/T4 rating. The speakerphone sounds good and is loud enough for
outdoor use, and battery life was good at 9 hours and 57 minutes of talk time. As for pricing,
GreatCall's pay-as-you-go service plans start at $14.99 per month for 50 minutes, up to
$79.99 per month for unlimited minutes, text messages, operator assistance, and voicemail.
Otherwise, text messages are 10 cents each and voicemail costs an extra $3 per month.
As we discovered in our testing for the Fastest Mobile Networks, Sprint has the slowest 3G
speeds of all the carriers we tested. That means that all 3G-only Sprint and Virgin phones are
running at some pretty challenged data speeds. Thankfully, 4G WiMAX support offers the
Galaxy S II a major boost. Running Ookla's Speedtest.net app, I saw average 4G download
speeds of 5Mbps in Manhattan, all the way up to an impressive 10Mbps. Uploads stayed at
1.4Mbps across the board. While WiMAX will get you much faster data speeds, keep in mind
that it isn't available everywhere the same way that 3G is. Make sure you're covered before
you buy.